Jury: N.Y. agency at fault in ’93 WTC bombing

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New York City police and firefighters inspect the bomb crater inside the World Trade Center on Feb. 27, 1993, one day after the attack. A jury ruled Wednesday that the Port Authority was negligent in the bombing, a long-awaited legal victory for victims of the attack, which killed six and wounded 1,000.

NEW YORK — A jury ruled Wednesday that the Port Authority was negligent in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 — a long-awaited legal victory for victims of an attack that killed six people and wounded 1,000 eight years before terrorists brought down the buildings.

The six-person jury ruled that the Port Authority, the agency that owned the World Trade Center, was negligent by not properly maintaining the parking garage where terrorists detonated more than a half-ton of explosives in a Ryder van. Several separate trials will now be held to determine money damages.

The jury took just one day to reach its verdict after the four-week trial.

The trial cast the spotlight on an attack that was overshadowed after Sept. 11, but was horrific nonetheless. The noontime blast blew a gigantic crater in the garage, filled the building with smoke, wrecked the towers’ power and emergency systems, and spread fear across New York.

12 years of delays
The verdict came after almost 12 years of legal delays in the civil case. The Port Authority’s last appeal, to try to get the case thrown out, was rejected last year, clearing the way for the trial.

The jury appeared to be swayed by a 1985 report written by the Port Authority’s own security officials, who warned the 400-slot garage was a likely attack site. Plaintiff lawyers cited the report as proof that the Port Authority could have protected the building long before the attack, but did not want to because it was inconvenient and would have cost too much.

“They should have closed the garage,” lead plaintiff lawyer David J. Dean said after the verdict. “Lives would have been saved, and 1,000 people would not have been hurt.”

Jurors apparently agreed. Juror Ray Gonzalez, 58, said the 1985 report was “very prominent” in deliberations. He said the Port Authority “dropped the ball. No one took (the report) seriously.”

The jury determined that the agency was 68 percent liable for the bombing — a ruling that Kasowitz found stunning.

“To hold the Port Authority twice as liable as the terrorists for the 1993 bombing stands logic, rationality and reason on their heads,” he said.

Kasowitz said during the trial that it was “offensive” to suggest the agency chose profits over safety. He said 3,000 of the Port Authority’s own employees, which the agency considered “family,” worked at the site in 1993.

Blaming the victim?
And he said that nothing would have deterred resourceful terrorists — obsessed with bombing a building that was an icon of capitalism — from finding a way to unleash an attack.

“The plaintiffs want to blame the Port Authority for the murderous acts of fanatical terrorists who schemed for years and traveled thousands of miles” to carry out the attack, Kasowitz told the jury.

During the trial, state Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Figueroa ordered lawyers to avoid mention of the Sept. 11 attack because it was irrelevant to the 1993 bombing.

Six people were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in criminal court for their roles in the bombing. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the reputed mastermind, said at sentencing: “Yes, I am a terrorist and I am proud of it.”